Just Stop
by The Lady Avaritia
Summary: 'With those bruise-rings under your eyes, and that unhealthily white skin, hollow cheeks of yours, you look like one of those poor abused little kids they put up on Christmas charity posters.' Kisame learns some unexpected truths about his young partner.


**Title: Just Stop**

**Rating: **T  
><strong>Spoilers: <strong>general

**Characters**: Itachi; Kisame

**Summary: ** 'With those bruise-rings under your eyes, and that unhealthily white skin, hollow cheeks of yours, you look like one of those poor abused little kids they put up on Christmas charity posters.' Kisame learns some unexpected truths about his young partner.

**Disclaimer: **disclaimed

**Author Note:** You can take this as either yaoi or friendship. It is what you want it to be. I hope you like it. I planned it as part of Nails and Teeth, and maybe part of it will appear in one chapter or another… I don't know. Just mentioning, Itachi is around 15-16 in this. Kisame is ten years older than him, so there. Please Review!

**Author: **_Lady Avaritia_

_This is as quiet as it gets_

_Hush down now and go to sleep_

_We were once perfect, me and you_

_We'll never leave this room._

_~Hush, Automatic Loveletter_

Outside the moon cuddled under the nearly transparent blanket of soft grey clouds, and the stars were engraving themselves on the sore flesh of an indigo sky.

The air smelled of spring and rain, and shattered innocence.

A lone moon ray poked shyly through the drawn curtains, then entered the room and spilled itself on the heavy rug in a small silver pond of light.

The screen door that separated the room in two spacious and well-furnished halves was drawn aside. On the two large canopied beds two men didn't sleep.

Itachi was tossing and turning in the silk covers, his eyes screwed shut, his thin lips pulled back. A thin veil of glowing sweat drops was covering his young face, and his hair had spilled on the fluffy pillow like liquid darkness.

On the other side of the room, in the other bed, Kisame was staring intently at the canopy, as his mind wandered. He was somewhat interested in what nightmarish vision was robbing his young partner of precious sleep. At the same time, he would much rather, for the sake of his own sanity, not find out what vengeful ghosts were troubling the prodigy's mind.

Behind his pretty indifferent face Itachi hid a sick little twisted hellhole of a conscience that Kisame had learned to be wary of.

(He was afraid of his partner.)

And still, for the two years that he'd spend with his new partner, never once did he see the raven sleep like a normal person. No, there would always be the tossing, the turning, the soft whispers, and sometimes even screams, after which Itachi would raise shaky, barely able to move and lock himself in the bathroom, where Kisame could hear him vomiting his guts out.

This night seemed a particularly bad one, judging by the sound of it. Unable to help himself, Kisame stood up and crossed over to Itachi's side of the room. He stood over the bed, and looked down on the sleeping frame of his partner.

The Uchiha looked ridiculously small huddled in all those large pillows, but there was nothing ridiculous about the way his face was edged with raw pain. Kisame had never seen such an agonized look on a face so young before.

He sighed. Sometimes the shark-nin felt sorry for his partner. This was one of those times.

'No!' Itachi cried softly, 'Please…stop! Just…stop…'

His was digging his slender fingers in one of the pillows with ripping force, and traitorous tears had stained his papery cheeks.

With a sudden jolt he awoke and stood straight in bed, clutching the pillow to his naked chest, his charcoal eyes wide with fear and shock. He brushed the sticky hair off his sweaty forehead, and breathed several times.

By the third inhale, he had already registered Kisame's presence by the bed.

'D'ya wanna talk about it?' Kisame asked.

'No,' Itachi said sternly.

'Maybe it will do you some good,' Kisame offered. 'Either do that or ask Sasori to fix you up with some sleep inducing drug, because you can't keep going like that.'

'Yes I can.'

'You think no one notices, but those people aren't stupid. I heard Kakuzu talking yesterday, he said those rings under your eyes look like bruises, and to tell you, he's damn right. You invoke my protective instincts just with the sight of you. With those bruise-rings under your eyes, and that unhealthily white skin of yours, and your hollow cheeks, you look like one of those poor abused little kids they put up on Christmas charity posters.'

Itachi laughed then, a dry, hollow sound. It sounded ugly coming from his lips.

'Shit…don't tell me…' Kisame fell silent staring astonished at his young partner.

'He never meant to… and it only happened rarely anyway,' Itachi said idly.

'Your father?'

'Hn.'

'What did he do? I mean... I don't wanna be nosy, or anything…but my father used to hit the bottle pretty hard, and then…I mean, I just…but if you don't want to talk…'

'It's fine,' Itachi rolled his bony shoulders in a graceful shrug. 'He just…he was under a lot of stress at the time…and he fought a lot with my mother…but he's only ever beat me a few times. And, honestly…it wasn't that bad either…nothing I couldn't pass as a mission injury…'

'Wait…he beat you hard enough to look like a mission injury?'

'It only happened a few times,' Itachi sighed.

'Are you defending him?'

'A little, I guess. He's dead now. I was taught not to speak ill of the dead.'

Kisame shook his head slowly, and sat himself on the corner of the bed, leaning against one of the posts.

'You keep talking in your sleep all the time,' he said quietly, 'you beg someone to stop doing something?' he let it hang as a question. Itachi closed his eyes, and his eyelashes cast long shadows over his high cheekbones. He was silent for a while.

'My parents,' he said curtly.

'What?'

'They fought all the time. I don't remember a time when they were in the same room alone and they didn't fight. My mother was vicious,' he chuckled a little. 'There was a time when my father walked around with nail marks all over his arms. And I mean deep nail marks. Some left scars, I think.'

A spark of dark amusement flashed in his eyes. Kisame realized that Itachi was to an extent happy that his father had been hurt.

'What…,' his mouth had gone dry. He cleared his throat and tried again. 'What did they fight about?'

'Me,' Itachi said simply. Kisame stared at him.

'My mother didn't want me to be a ninja, and my father would like nothing better but to have me as Hokage. _You will ruin my boy!_ That's what my mother used to tell him. And he was always calm and controlled. She yelled. A lot. Sometimes she screamed herself hoarse. She'd shriek and sob, and cry and growl, and throw things around, and beat him with her small hands, and he'd be calm and distant… it was killing her. _You don't care enough to fight with me like a real husband. _And she'd turn around, go away and lock herself up in the bathroom to sob. And then my father would try to repair the damages, put things back in order…and it would go all over again the next day, for a different subject…'

He paused. His face had a far away look, as if he'd transported himself back to that time.

'How old were you?'

'I don't know…' Itachi had a thoughtful expression for a moment. 'It started when I activated my Sharingan first so I must have been…three? Four?' he sounded uncertain

'You had your Sharingan at –'

'Yes, four,' Itachi mused. It was as if he hadn't heard Kisame.

'And…and when did your father start…hurting you?' Kisame didn't know why he asked. He supposed he wanted Itachi to open up, had wanted it for quite a while. But this was…he hadn't expected the type of skeletons Itachi would hurl at him from the closet of his past.

'After I graduated the Academy, I think…but – '

'I know, I know, it only happened a few times.'

'Well he stopped when I made Chuunin. I think he began fearing me. He still fought with mother though. Sasuke made her happy, but he was an entirely new reason to fight too. I think I began staying at Shisui's house more around that time. I couldn't… I couldn't stand it. They were yelling all the time and Sasuke would come to me crying, expecting me to fix things… I just…couldn't. I wanted them to simply…stop. Just stop. And do nothing. Not yell, not talk. Just stop. Somehow. Anyhow. I wanted them to disappear… I – I guess I hated them a little too,' he said the last part softly, eyes wide with amazement as if he'd never quite said it out loud. A tear was slowly making its way down his cheek.

'You killed them,' Kisame said.

Itachi shook his head.

'They deserved it. All of them. They deserved it,' he sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than anything. More tears made their way out of his eyes.

Kisame extended an arm and pulled the boy to his chest. Itachi buried his face in his partner's blue shoulder.

'They deserved it,' he whispered as his violent sobs shook his thin frame.

'There, now, there,' Kisame murmured as he wrapped his arms awkwardly around Itachi. He felt his thin ribs with one arm, and his bowed spine with the other. The raven's thin hands were trapped against the blue man's large chest.

'I never knew my mother,' he said softly. 'And my father… he was a sad case. He drunk, and then he wanted to… do things to me. I trained to be a ninja because I wanted to protect my self from him. Sometimes I slept on the playground because I didn't want to be in the same house as him.'

'I've never been to a playground,' Itachi muttered.

'Never?' Kisame was mildly horrified.

'I had to train to please at least my father. My mother didn't love me much after I enrolled in the Academy. She was setting herself for me to die.' He let out a strangled sound between a sob and a laugh.

'I liked the playground. It was just across the academy. We went there after classes, a group of kids and I,' Kisame rumbled, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that there was a person who'd never been to a playground.

'We had a swing in the academy yard. I snuck to it once or twice to swing a little before anybody came to classes,' Itachi sounded a bit guilty. As if what he'd done had been wrong.

Kisame shook his head sadly. He wondered…

'How old were you when you started training?'

'Four. I started immediately when I activated my Sharingan.'

Kisame didn't quite manage to stifle a gasp.

He'd always known there was something wrong with Itachi, something missing… now he knew what.

Itachi had never ever been a child, and the shadows of his ripped up childhood were still haunting him.

'Kisame,' Itachi murmured drowsily, his eyelids heavy with the weight of ugly truths tears.

'Yes?'

'I'll talk to Sasori about that sleeping drug.'

'You do that.'

He laid the small body on the bed. Itachi was so thin. His wrists looked like they'd snap. The blue nin threw a sheet over his partner. He sent his own bed a look, made a step, and then changed his mind. He returned to Itachi's bed, pulled one of the fluffy pillows that the boy seemed so fond of and pulled part of the sheet towards himself. He couldn't quite stifle a gasp of surprise when the weasel snuggled closer for warmth and comfort, but he laid a hand across his partner's narrow waist anyway.

Outside the moon was already collecting her starry jewels, preparing to offer herself to somebody else, while her unfaithful lover, the sun, crept tentatively up an iron sky.

The air smelled of spring and rain and childhood.

_I won't make a sound so you don't wake._

_~Hush, Automatic Loveletter_


End file.
